Linux Timeline

Sun Microsystems announces that it will release the source to
Solaris under the Sun Community Source License. The actual release
drew criticism: “In a move aimed at Linux, Sun said it will
announce Wednesday that it is making the source code for its new
Solaris 8 operating system 'open'. Webster's has lots of
definitions for the word, including 'not sealed, fastened, or
locked'. But when you dig into the details of Sun's announcement,
you'll find that what it is offering doesn't come close to meeting
the dictionary's definition, let alone that of the Open Source
movement.” —Lawrence Aragon,
Redherring.com, January
26, 2000

Red Hat buys Cygnus for almost $700 million in stock. Rumors
of other acquisitions by Red Hat begin to circulate and show no
signs of stopping.

December 1999

VA Linux Systems goes public after two repricings (originally
priced at $11-$13/share). The final IPO price is $30/share; that
price rises immediately to $300 before closing around $250. It sets
the record for the biggest IPO rise in the history of the
NASDAQ.

“Gee. Remember when the big question was 'How do we make
money at this?”' —Eric Raymond

January 2000

VA Linux Systems announces SourceForge (although the site had
actually been up and running since November 1999). SourceForge also
makes the code for its operation available under the GPL. By the
end of the year, SourceForge hosted over 12,000 projects and 92,000
registered developers.

Version 1.0 of Red Flag Linux is released in the People's
Republic of China.

Transmeta breaks its long silence and tells the world what it
has been up to—the Crusoe chip, of course.

The Linux Professional Institute announces the availability
of its first Linux professional certification exam.

Linux wannabe press releases flow from companies trying to
ride on the success of Linux stocks. Vitamins.com, for example,
posts the following: “Vitamins.com has further distinguished
itself in the competitive Internet health industry race by being
one of the first to integrate the Linux Operating System, produced
by Red Hat, the leading developer and provider of open-source
software solutions.”

February 2000

The latest IDC report suggests that Linux now ranks as the
“second-most-popular operating system for server computers”, with
25% of the server operating system sales in 1999. Windows NT is
first with 38% and NetWare ranks third with 19%. IDC previously
predicted that Linux would get up to the number two position—in
2002 or 2003. The revolution appears to be well ahead of
schedule.

VA Linux Systems acquisition of Andover.net in a high-profile
purchase that values Andover shares at 0.425 of VA's, or roughly
$50/share. Andover.net is the owner of the popular web sites
Slashdot.org and
Freshmeat.org.

LinuxMall.com and Frank Kaspar and Associates also have made
plans to merge. LinuxMall.com has been at the top of the retail
side of Linux almost since the very beginning; Kaspar is one of the
largest distribution channels.

Red Hat wins InfoWorld's “Product of
the Year” award for the fourth time in a row.

March 2000

“The law in open code means that no actor can gain ultimate
control over open-source code. Even the kings can't get ultimate
control over the code. For example, if Linus Torvalds, father of
the Linux kernel, tried to steer GNU/Linux in a way that others in
the community rejected, then others in the community could always
have removed the offending part and gone in a different way. This
threat constrains the kings; they can only lead where they know the
people will follow.” —“Innovation, Regulation, and the Internet”
by Lawrence Lessig for The American
Prospect.

A new version of LILO is posted that is able to get past the
1024-cylinder boot limit that has plagued PC systems for
years.

The latest Netcraft survey shows Apache running on just over
60% of the Web.

Caldera Systems goes public after a short delay, on March 21.
The stock, which was offered at $14/share, began trading at $26 and
closed at $29.44. It thus registered a 110% gain on its first
day.

“Caldera knows of no company that has built a profitable
business based in whole or in part on open-source
software.” —Caldera SEC filing

Walnut Creek (the parent company for Slackware) and BSDi
announce their merger. Yahoo! will be taking an equity investment
in the new company.

Motorola Computer Group announces the release of its HA Linux
distribution. This distribution is aimed at telecommunications
applications that require very high amounts of uptime; it includes
hot-swap capability and is available for the i386 and PowerPC
architectures.

The Embedded Linux Consortium is announced. Its goal is “to
amplify the depth, breadth and speed of Linux adoption in the
enormous embedded computer market”. The initial leader will be
Rick Lehrbaum, the man behind the
LinuxDevices.com and
DesktopLinux.com web
sites, among other things.

Ericsson announces its “Screen Phone HS210” product—a
Linux-based telephone with a touchscreen that can be used for
e-mail, web browsing, etc. Ericsson and Opera Software also
announce that Ericsson's (Linux-based) HS210 Screen Phone will
incorporate the Opera web browser.

The "alt" hierarchy has never been considered an authoritative location for a newsgroup. To create an alt.* newsgroup, all you had to do was send a "newgroup" message and it would spread across the usenet and be created. The "comp" hierarchy required/requires a vote process. The creation date of a comp.os.linux newsgroup would have reflected sufficient recognition in the usenet community to support the formal creation of the group.

Many claim that Netscape Communications's decision to release its browser suite as open source software was the event that convinced many large corporations that the Linux operating system (and the free software movement in general) was viable and should be embraced.

Netscape announces that they will release the source to their browser under a free software license. This almost certainly remains one of the most important events of the year; it opened a lot of eyes to what Linux and free software could provide.

Seems odd that more than one and a half years worth of Linux is simply left out here. What's wrong with that period? I started using Linux at this point and I'm pretty sure MANY noteworthy things happened. How about "Linux Kernel 2.0"?

Yes, especially the Halloween paper was a very important point in Linux history as it showed that Linux got so important that even MS feared...

Please insert this one and remove the Skylarov part, it's not about Linux at all.

But the article is quite good, although I would have liked to see more technical things, less business oriented. Kernel 2.0 was not mentioned and other important technical steps like the first release of X Window for Linux are missing, too. After all, those are the things that made Linux a success...

No mention of Eazel or Loki. I can't believe id Software wasn't mentioned. I don't think I'm alone when I say they single handedly saved OpenGL and freedom of (commercial) computer graphics and helped Linux incredibly since almost day one. I would have also liked some updates on GNU software. For example, what gcc, binutils, etc. were in use from Linux 0.x to 1.x to 2.x, etc. Would be quite cool to see how everything updated. Oh, and, um. WHERE IS THE GIMP?! Perl? Python? Are you guys nuts?! Perhaps there needs to be a comprehensive timeline... wiki-style.

Unix-compatible software system called GNU (for Gnu's Not Unix), and give it away free(1) to everyone who can use it. Contributions of time, money, programs and equipment are greatly needed.

To begin with, GNU will be a kernel plus all the utilities needed to write and run C programs: editor, shell, C compiler, linker, assembler, and a few other things. After this we will add a text formatter, a YACC, an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and hundreds of other things. We hope to supply, eventually, everything useful that normally comes with a Unix system, and anything else useful, including

I was pretty choked by this, too, despite never supporting them (like by using Debian). I kept meaning to send LJ a nasty note, but voila, here's a web forum.

Sure, it was probably hard to pare down the list only 100 events, but c'mon, no mention of being adopted as the kernel for an otherwise kick-ass operating system (without which Linux would be... useless)

Correct. But you should apply that same sentence to Linux as well. If you call Linux an "operating system", then it's indeed very far from finished. OK, the kernel is here, but what about all the rest?

GNU + Linux is a usable operating system, hence GNU/Linux. You don't need Stallman to realize that. GNU never intended to write all software from scratch, only the proprietary parts.

I agree that the graffitti incident is probably not all that important, but what I would count as a hallmark is the appearance of the first IBM television commercial, the one with the tough-cop voice-over and scenes of bohemian Helsinki; this marks the introduction of Linux to the television audience and is as significant as the Forbes interview.

Please please don't say such stupid things. How many times do they have to tell the world!? Now *read* carefully, pick up a crayon and write it down at least a kazillion times (yes dumbo, read the license):

"The Qt GUI Toolkit is Copyright (C) 1994-2000 Trolltech AS.

You may use, distribute and copy the Qt GUI Toolkit under the terms of

GNU General Public License version 2, which is displayed below."

(From the Qt 2.3.0 tarball).

Now pick up a new crayon (by now the other one should be gone), and write: "I should not comment on things I do not know about."

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